Disable Strong Passwords Enforcement

By default Microsoft Windows Server 2008 enforces users in the Administrator usergroup to use strong passwords. Home users just want to create their own passwords without meeting any policies or leave it blank. This tutorial will explain how to disable these complexity requirements!

2. In the right pane double click Password must meet complexity requirements and set it to Disabled. Click OK to save your change. You will now not longer be forced to use strong passwords; you can even use a blank one!

3. Optionally you can also choose to never let expire your passwords. To do this also open the Maximum password age policy and set set the value to 0. Click OK to save the policy change!

This password settings solution rarely works (just google for “password complexity 2008” and you’ll see what I mean) – The only solution I found was to create a new Group Policy, unlink and unenforce the default policy then disable the “Inherit settings” from your new policy. Then set the password settings as above and set the Link and Enforce settings for the new policy.

Phew!! – After all that open a command prompt and run “GPUpdate /force”

I couldn’t find any instructions on the Net that actually explained this in an understandable way, even at MSDN! – This finally worked for me, however I AM running a domain so all GP’s and GPO’s have to be linked to that domain. DO NOT DELETE THE DEFAULT POLICY – It’s needed by various system services (What a stupid thing to do MS!)

Why would anyone want to spend all that money on a Server operating system, then cripple it by running loads of CPU intensive services that aren’t needed to run a network? Just buy Vista and you have all the eye munchies without the extra expense of Server 2008. We all know that Vista and Server 2008 are basically the same OS just with specific services and programs either enabled or disabled according to what the machine will be used for. Using 2008 as a workstation is maybe interesting on a techie basis but I would seriously check your grip on reality if you actually consider doing this in the workplace. Don’t let your boss catch you either (or at least anyone who knows anything about computers – so your boss is probably OK actually.)

If you are joined to a domain or using this as a workstation slash domain controller as i am then you need to do this through the Group Policy Manager in the Administrative Tools under Computer Configuration>Policies>Windows Settings>Security Settings>Account Policies>Password Policies: Then you will be able to edit the password policy for the entire domain. I am using two server 08 as domain controllers and have three machines on the domain and it enforced the policy for all.

Thank you very much for all this usefull information avaliable here.
I am using server 2008R2 on my laptop, this operating system is really the one that I want.you are doing really good job.
Thanks again
Kindly regards

Arris: Thanks for your comment 🙂 Did you notice that although much tweaks are the same, there is also a website dedicated to the R2 version of Windows Server 2008? It’s: http://www.win2008r2workstation.com. Enjoy your laptop with 2008 R2! 😉

i have windows server 2008 as my domain controller ,i am facing problem when i want to change
password complexity , i went
local security policy / acount policy
when i want to change it , all option are disbled
i cant change any thing,
help plz